The $10 billion is part a $45 billion Softbank package meant to finance Sprint’s rumored acquisition of T-Mobile, the paper said. Any merger between Sprint and T-Mobile would require the approval of the FCC and Department of Justice, of course.

This joint venture will likely only happen if the merger deal is still in play at the time of the auction.

With 30 MHz reserved for smaller carriers, this joint venture would make money available for next year’s 600 MHz auction. A budget of $10 billion might buy a 20 MHz slice (10 MHz x 10 MHz), or two swaths of 10 MHz (5 MHz x 2).

Since Sprint has 800MHz towers, perhaps Sprint could use their infrastructure to host a joint 600 MHz network, although T-Mobile also plans to deploy 5×5 MHz 700 MHz A Block spectrum by year-end, which it acquired from Verizon for $2.4 billion.

Dish is also likely to bid on 600 MHz, perhaps spending some $5 Billion on 10 MHz (5 MHz x 2). That would leave the duopoly 40 MHz, or 20 MHz each, if the FCC’s guesstimate of 70 MHz freed by TV broadcasters proves correct.

Both Dish and Sprint/T-Mobile appear to be positioned to deliver “wireless cable” on higher frequencies, while 600 MHz could provide voice and data roaming. Sprint is using 8T8R equipment at 2.6 GHz and is launching 40MHz carrier aggregation, with 60 MHz on deck. That’s 6x the bandwidth and more towers to deliver mobile video.

AT&T and Verizon are so 20th Century. Their only option is to buy a duopoly position to keep prices high and complain to government about unfair competition.